


I'll be there

by Ely_Pines



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Heavy Angst, Or not at all, Spoilers Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 15:21:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18593986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ely_Pines/pseuds/Ely_Pines
Summary: Steve loved Peggy. Steve love Bucky. So WTF Russo bros?Obviously major spoilers here (Endgame's end of the movie type of spoilers). I'm pissed, I'm in shock I'm grieving and I DO NOT agree on that scene. Basically: I can't deny the canon but I will look at it differently.





	I'll be there

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Possibility](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18583168) by [Annaelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annaelle/pseuds/Annaelle). 



> For @Annaelle : I kinda thought my fic as a sequel to yours (or at least compliant with it) before I saw all the other fix-it-sorta fics. I think we're all kind into an agreement here.  
> Personnally, I find this scene insulting to all the characters involved - all Steve and Peggy's character's arc, not to mention how unfair it was for Bucky who's finally healed and Sam who'd became Steve's best friend in the new century.

The War was over.

Independently of time and space - the war was over.

Agent Peggy Carter was coming back to New York after a particularly strange and exhausting investigation slash adventure slash just another day work for the S.S.R. apparently. At first, she had wanted to stay in L.A. (for obvious reasons) a bit longer but she really missed her best friend Angie - plus chief Thompson almost begged her to come and give him a hand with their favorite psycho Russian assassin running at large yet again.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it!” chimed Angie.

Peggy smiled. She was still putting on her dress, getting ready for work in her ridiculously enormous bedroom. She heard Angie’s light footsteps sliding on the carpets and her dress brushing along the over expansive furniture. Then she heard her opening their front door.

“Hi! Can I help you?”

“Hi. I’m sorry, I’m, er, looking for a friend...”

Peggy froze. That voice. That deep, warm voice, that same voice she kept hearing during her bad nights although it had been so many years already. So many years since the war had ended. What kind of cruel joke was that?

She finished putting on her lipstick and walked across the grand dinning room and into the entry hall. When Angie heard and saw her approaching, she took a step away from the doorstep - and the man took a step into the mansion.

He looked old.

“Peg.” The blond man smiled fondly. “I’m sorry I missed our dance. I was hoping you’d give me another chance.”

He looked old and tired. But he was looking at her and he was standing not ten feet apart from her. She walked towards him and stared straight into his blue eyes.

“Is it really you?” she asked.

The smile became kinder and he wrapped gingerly his hand around her waist, pulling her closer to him without them both even realizing it.

“Yes it’s me Peg” said Steve. “I’m back.”

She slapped him.

Peggy swiftly moved back and lifted her delicate but strong hand to her face, feeling the tears flooding her eyes, maybe starting to mess up with her perfect make-up.

“Peggy...” Steve began.

She cut him. off She took a deep breath and managed to keep her voice even despite her heart crushing her rib cage.

“Where have you been all these years?”

Steve looked down, sheepishly.

“Away” he eventually answered in a low voice. “Away from you and it hurt so much, believe me. I’m sorry Peg.” He raised his eyes to meet hers’. “But I’m back now. I came back just for you Peggy. Please, don’t push me away.”

Her heart was a painful drum inside her chest, like a bomb, like an engine ready to explode, to carve its way out of her. And why resist any further? Why denying the reality, that second shot at happiness she thought the Universe was decided not to let her have it?

They fell into each other’s warm embrace and soon Steve started to kiss her beautiful hair, applying along with his soft lips the saltiness of his tears.

“You didn’t even write” said Peggy.

“I’m sorry” he replied and kissed her more deeply.

 

*

 

It was supposed to be five seconds. But Bucky knew better.

He didn’t pay much attention to the device once Steve had been swallowed by it, sent God knew when and where. His eyes got attracted by the quiet figure sitting on the bench, near the lake. He had noticed the person the moment they had walked out of the house to gather in front of their time machine - his training would never let him ignore anyone within his sight’s reach.

When the five seconds were over, his heart just sunk and he smiled wryly. Because Bucky knew what Steve intended to do - how could he not? Steve was his world, nothing about him was a mystery. Nothing and especially not the place wherein his heart lay.

“Sam.”

The Falcon waved his hand at him, still focusing on the machine.

“Not now, man, we gotta get Steve back, he’s-”

“ _Sam _.__ ”

The black man finally turned and the white man pointed at the silhouette on the bench. With a simple tilt of his chin, Bucky invited his best frenemie to go talk to Steve while he remained a few feet away. Eventually, when Sam was done talking and went back inside the house carrying the shield with him as if it was a bomb - but the most precious bomb ever - Bucky came to sit next to his old friend.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then, Bucky broke the silence.

“Sam will be an amazing Captain America.”

Steve chuckled lightly.

“I’m sure he will. You’re not jealous?”

Bucky gave him an undecipherable look.

“I once tried to kill Captain America.”

“Yes, I think I remember that.”

They both fell quiet again. The brunet stared at his friend. Time had been busy of course but Steve didn’t look like an helpless old person more than that. His movements were slower obviously but the super serum was supposed to help him live over a hundred years old - maybe even more - and help him fight till the very end of it. Bucky didn’t want to know if he still could. He only needed to know that they still had time. For the two of them.

His eyes fell on the gold circle around Steve’s wrinkled finger. His gaze lingered on it probably longer that what was needed. He cleared his throat.

“Steve...”

“Yes, Buck?”

The blond was smiling so peacefully. That sparkle it used to hold before the war - that fierce rage of a ninety-nine pounds of asthmatic guy who would never back down from a fight - was gone. But Bucky knew it had been gone since the war ended. Thus he was relieved to find that the dense guilt that had replaced it afterwards was also gone. Steve was finally at peace.

Or so it seemed.

“It’s not a wedding ring, Steve.”

Steve looked down at the jewel wrapped around his finger then back up at him and he smiled like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Please, don’t tell Sam.”

But Bucky’s face had darkened.

“Did you even have a happy life?”

Steve stared at him.

“Yes” he said without blinking - and Bucky knew he was telling the truth.

 

*

 

It was so much it didn’t feel real.

It was so much it was true happiness.

At first, Steve just slept inside their home and Peggy carried on with her job like nothing really happened. They had their dance - and it was the most magical moment they had ever lived, both of them - but most of time, they tiptoed around each other, not sure that what was happening was real and that they wouldn’t woke up one day to find out it was just all a dream.

Eventually, Angie forced them to go on a date while she packed a bag and went crashing at a friend’s place for a week.

After six months, Steve proposed to Peggy - and she said yes.

But the thing was - they weren’t in love with each other anymore. Sure, they loved each other. They cherished each other over everything and everyone else on the planet and their hearts felt full when they were just breathing near the other. But they weren’t in love. Not in the right way to get married to each other, at least. It was painful to admit, it tore their heart apart admitting it but Peggy eventually gave her engagement ring back to Steve.

“It’s no one’s fault” she told him.

“I know” he replied.

When he had decided to come back to his best girl, he couldn’t pick the same year he went under the ice. Someone would have mentioned it. People might even have wanted him to go finish the war. And someone would have brought up Bucky’s death too. Steve knew he was alive - knew he was going to be okay one day - but that wasn’t something he wanted to go through again. Besides, he was older. He had spent a decade in the new century. It was only fair, he thought, to let Peggy also have her own years alone. What he hadn’t thought about that was that she would have moved on.

And that he would have too.

Thus Steve slid the ring on his finger and left.

Turned out the world could use an anonymous superhero. He only made sure not to use the shield too often lest someone would recognize it. He used Thor’s hammer, too - it was fun. He met young Nick Fury and saw Coulson entering SHIELD. Alas, he wasn’t there to meet Carol but he attended a special funeral on a certain day of cold December and was that stranger who gave Howard’s kid a candy. Also, he became the shadow of a deadly but brainwashed assassin. As he couldn’t save him - not yet, he would just pass near him and give him a pat on the shoulder, a word of encouragement, just a glance even - but it helped the Soldier keep his spark of humanity.

He lived. He fought, he loved and he even drew. He never lost contact with Peggy either. They wrote tons of letters to each other - for they remained best friends first and foremost. Steve would visit her - and her husband, a disabled man so kind and brave he loved him right away - once in a year, and sometimes even help her out with her current mission.

Finally, one day, he packed his old shield with a smile and came to sit on a bench next to a lake.

 

*

 

Bucky came home, feeling completely washed out - that idiot of Wilson, one day...! - and threw his gun on the table. After a moment of hesitation, he also removed his two biggest knives. Then, he went straight into the kitchen and grabbed the milk out of the fridge. Fully aware it was a Clint thing to do and also that Steve __hated__  it when he did that, he drank directly at the carton.

“Buck, is that you?”

The voice was coming from the living-room. The brunet groaned. Carrying the milk with him, he joined Steve in the other room. The blond man was sitting on his comfy chair, a blanket over his laps, a book in his hands. Bucky sat at his feet and let his head come to rest again the other man’s legs.

“Rough day?” Steve chuckled.

He groaned again.

“Don’t get me started.”

They fell silent and only the sound of the book’s pages getting turned could be heard. Finally, Bucky sighed.

“I can’t do that anymore” he murmured.

Steve stopped.

“You can’t do what?” he asked gently.

Bucky turned to cross his arms on Steve’s knee and lay his chin on them, looking directly at the other man.

“This. I miss you so much.”

The blond smiled and ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair with his right hand.

“Don’t worry, I’m here. And I ain’t going anywhere.”

The ex-assassin closed his eyes.

“I _know_  but I-”

He reopened them and took a deep breath.

“I too want a shot at a life with you.”

Steve’s brow furrowed.

“Well, I thought that what we were doing here?” His voice was teasing but his eyes were full of concern - and hurt.

Bucky shook his head and sat up.

“No, that’s not what I mean. I-” He stopped for one moment, biting his lips nervously. “Listen, Steve, I- I love you.”

“Aw Buck, you know I love you t-”

“Shut up and let me finish pappy.”

It was hard and his throat felt sore. But he managed to get it out.

“I was thinking about the time machine. Not to travel ourselves but, you know, like you told me about Scott turning into an old man and then a baby. I was thinking that- I think it’s our chance Steve. Please, listen!”

Steve was already shaking his head.

“You know this is not possible, Buck. It’s not just making your body younger or older. It pushes the time into you - you as a whole. If I go back to my twenties, I’ll forget everything I have lived after it to that day.”

“I know but listen. We could do it, the two of us. Going back to our pre-war selves. We could start it all over Steve! No war, no nightmares, no bad memories. Start over and have a proper life together. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Steve looked at his best friend with the most tender and sad smile.

“Buck” he said “we both know you don’t want that either.”

It was too much. The former Winter Soldier choked and buried his face into Steve’s laps. He cried - for a long time. He eventually calmed down under Steve’s light touch, the man brushing so gently through in his long, brown hair.

“But I can’t do it anymore” the brunet moaned.

“Shh. I know.”

As much as he could, Steve bent forward to put a ghost kiss on Bucky’s head.

“And I promise we’ll find a solution. Together.”


End file.
